Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to our lesson today.

My name is Mr. Miskell, and I'll be your Citizenship teacher for today's lesson.

Now, before we get started with what we're going to be looking at today, I'd like to make sure that you're in a quiet space so that you can participate in what we're going to be doing and what we're going to be learning about, without any distractions around you.

And also, you need to make sure that you've got a pen and a sheet of paper by your side.

Once you've got all those things sorted, you're ready to get started with what we're going to be doing today.

And what we are doing today is an exciting lesson, which is about how can young people get involved in local democracy? And it's less than two of six in this unit of work.

Now, in order to go about doing that, we're going to start looking at this, and this is our agenda for today.

And the first thing that we're going to look at, really, is to try and define what we really mean by local democracy.

Because we're talking about how we can get young people more involved in local democracy, we have to actually explain what we mean by local democracy.

Now, once we've done that, we're then going to think about what options young people might have to make their voice heard locally.

And there's a whole host of different things that young people have, different options that young people have to make their voice heard locally.

One of those things is about youth councils.

And we're going to look at what are youth councils.

Which is then going to lead us onto an example of a youth council.

And that's going to be a case study about Islington Youth Council in London.

And lastly, we're going to go into thinking a little bit about why are youth councils good for democracy.

And I'm going to leave you with a little bit of takeaway work that you can get on with which could be about researching your own youth council in your own particular town, city, village, or county as well.

So let's get going with our lesson today.

Now, before we do get into our lesson really deeply, I'd like to make sure that we're settled and sorted with a few key terms, because this will help us access learning later on.

And the two key terms I want to introduce you to today are about power and about influence.

Now we're going to go through these together now, but feel free to pause the lesson at any point and jot down these key terms about power and influence, because they will really help you when we're discussing them in more detail.

So by power, we mean the ability to influence decisions, individuals, or a course of action.

And we often talk about people in positions of power, like councillors or elected mayors.

By influence, we mean the ability to get your message across to people in positions of power, and as such, become powerful yourself.

And actually that's what citizenship is about.

It's about giving you the tools and the ability to influence and make your voice heard, which is what our lesson is about today.

Now, what I'd like us to do is I would like us to focus today on the areas, the branches of this tree that are in pink really.

Now what is this tree? This tree shows us about the distribution of power in the United Kingdom, and by distribution I mean where is power in our country? And you can see that the different branches are local government and regional government, those ones in pink, that we're going to be concentrating on today when we talk about local democracy.

And you can see that there's another kind of a branch there which is about national or central government, and there we'd be talking about the kind of laws that are made in the UK parliament, but also decisions that are made in the devolved assemblies, places like the National Assembly of Wales or the Northern Irish Assembly or the Scottish Parliament.

But like I said, we're really concentrating today on local democracy, and we're really thinking about that kind of regional arm, and also about the local government arm there, all of the things that are in pink there on your screen Now, in order for us to be able to access our lesson today and think about how young people can get involved in local democracy, we really need to consider what it is that we mean when we talk about local democracy.

And when we talk about local democracy, we really mean local democracy is about decisions made in your local area and how you can influence them.

The power to make decisions at a local or regional level in our villages, towns, cities, and counties, usually rests with local councils or elected mayors.

They make important decisions about local services like rubbish and recycling collections, roads, and often facilities like swimming pools, museums, and leisure centres.

Now the picture that you can see there on your screen is actually a picture of Leeds City Councils Offices, and Leeds City Council is a council that makes decisions in the West Yorkshire Region of England.

Now, the activity that I would like you to do with that information, armed with that information that we've just looked at together, is really about what is local democracy? And this is our first task, task one.

Now remember that you can pause the video at any point to see this on your screen.

And I'd like you to use your understanding of local democracy to write four separate sentences explaining how each of the words below links to local democracy.

Now the four different words that I want you to look at are decisions, power, influence, and services.

Now what you'll see on number one about decisions is that I've done that for you.

I've given you an example there.

And our example links back to our explanation of local democracy on our last slide.

Of course you could rewind our lesson and have a little look at that yourself if you're stuck when you're looking about power or influence or services, when you're writing your own sentence about those.

Now the sentence that I'd like to show you, the example is, local democracy is about decisions made in your local area.

So that's the answer to number one.

And I'd like you now to have a look at number two, which is about power, number three which is about influence, and number four which is about services.

Now, good luck with this task.

I'd like you to pause the video and like you to try and have a really, really good go at this and resume once you are finished.

Now well done there for giving that task a really, really good go.

And it isn't easy to try and make sentences out of some of those words.

And many of those words may well be quite new to you at the moment.

Now, when we're talking about this, students often give me examples like these when I'm in my normal classes.

And they say things like, in response to number one about decisions, this was the work example that we used, that local democracy is about decisions made in your local area.

Number two, when it comes to power, a sentence that students might share with me might be this.

The power to make decisions rests with local councils or with elected mayors.

Number three, when it comes to the word influence, a sentence that students might share with me about local democracy might be this.

Local democracy is about how you influence power.

Number four, the example that students might share with me might be something like this when it comes to services.

Local councils make important decisions about local services, like rubbish and recycling collections, roads, and often facilities like swimming pools.

And I'll make this full screen now so that you can pause the video, you can pause our lesson, and you can add to your own sentences to make them even, even better.

So feel free to pause the lesson now and add to your examples to make them even more special.

Now, once we've done that, I'd like you to take a moment to consider young people as decision-makers in your local community.

And in order to do this, I'd like you to draw an arch and then place the dial in the position that shows how well you think young people are listened to about decisions in your community.

Now, in order to do that, you're going to have to think a little bit about where you live, about your village, about your town, about city, or your county.

And we have to think really, do those people who make decisions really listen to young people in the area where you live? I'd like you to pause the video now, and I'd like you to draw your own arch and put yourself on that kind of, put yourself a dial in there to show what position would represent how well young people are listened to about decisions in your community? Now, once you've done that, I'd like you to, next, to make a list of the barriers to participation in decision-making in your local community.

What I mean by barriers to decision-making are kind of blocks.

What is it that stops young people from getting their voice heard by decision-makers in your local community? So good luck with this task now.

So, how well did you do with this? And this is a little bit of feedback about the sorts of answers that you might have.

Now, each and every one of you will have a different place on that dial, that speed dial, about where you think that you are in your community in terms of how well young people are listened to by decision-makers.

However, in a healthy village, town, or city, young people have an opportunity to have their say.

decision-makers would listen to their views.

Citizenship lessons in school allow children to learn about how to influence things in their community and become active citizens.

Now, what do we mean by active citizens? And this is something that we're going to come back to later on in the lesson, we mean a person who actively takes responsibility, becomes involved in areas of public concern, and tries to make a difference.

And that's really what we're talking about today in our lesson, this idea about how young people can get involved in local democracy, in decisions that are being made around them.

I also asked you to consider what might be some of the blocks to young people getting involved in decision-making in your local area? And these are the answers that young people often show me.

And you can see on your screen, around that picture of that young person, who's scratching their head there.

Well, young people often tell me that perhaps young people don't know how to influence decisions.

They often tell me well, perhaps young people are not particularly interested.

They also say, well, sometimes adults don't listen or that adults don't take our ideas seriously.

Now all of those are seriously awful things that people have said, but they're honestly quite honest responses that students often come back with.

And what we've got to do is we've got to make sure that our voices are listened to.

And citizenship's about giving you the tools and the skills to be listened to and to be able to make your voice heard.

Now we talked there an awful lot about active citizenship, really.

And I'd like us to really think, and just recap from previous lessons here, about why it's important to become an active citizen and to get your voice heard in local democracy.

Well, firstly, it's a right, because Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child says that it's a right and that you guys have got a right to be listened to and to be active citizens.

It prepares us for life, because in life we'll be expected to make our voice heard.

And actually it's an amazing life skill to be able to influence decision-makers.

It makes us feel much less hopeless in our own communities when we can influence decisions around us.

It also helps improve our community, and improves everyone's lives around us in our community, by being an active citizen as well.

And really participation is a process where someone influences decisions about their lives and this leads to different, it leads to change.

And that's a great definition there of participation, of getting involved to change things in our community.

Now, there are many different ways that young people can become active citizens.

What I'm going to do now is I'm going to run you through just four examples of how young people can become active citizens and what options do young people have to be active citizens and make their voices heard.

Now, the first one that I'd like us to look at really is there at the top of your screen, and it says, to ring up the council and talk to the council officers or local councillors responsible for an issue.

That's something you could do.

Number two, you could organise a local demonstration or march in connection with an issue that frustrates you.

When we talk about kind of demonstration, we're talking about people getting together and we're talking about people perhaps even holding up a placard with a message on it, in order to get the attention of decision-makers.

Underneath it, you can see that we've got draw up a petition to send to the council to express residents' views.

Now a petition is a list of names who all subscribe to a certain idea or want a certain thing to happen.

And you put at the top of it, that we, perhaps, the undersigned want this or this or this to happen, and then people underneath it put their names.

Why does that work in a democracy? Well, it works because decision-makers are elected, and elected politicians want to get reelected.

So the more support that you can show for a particular issue, the better in a democracy.

And lastly, and one that we're really going to focus in on today, well you could play an active part in your local youth council.

And that's what we're really going to be focusing on today.

All of these are really good ways that you can become active citizens and get your voice heard.

But the last one, about playing an active part in your local youth council, is what we're going to be focusing in on during our lesson.

Now, what do we mean by youth council? Well, we mean a youth council is a democratic organisation created, run, and developed by young people for young people.

They exist to represent the views of young people at a local level, giving young people the opportunity to have a voice, discuss relevant issues, engage with decision-makers, and contribute to improving the lives of young people within their communities.

Now, this is a definition of youth councils from the British Youth Council, which is kind of a representative voice of young people around our country.

Now looking at that definition of youth councils, and of course you can rewind our lesson to kind of recap about it, I'd like you to think about whether this statement is either true or whether you think it is false.

So true or false, a youth council is an organisation run by young people for young people.

Young people involved in youth councils are not seeking to influence decision-makers.

Is that true? Or is that false? I'd like you to take a moment just to work out what you think the answer there is.

Now, well done for really thinking quite deeply about that.

The reality is that actually it is false.

And the reason it is false is that young people, it says doesn't it, that young people involved in youth councils are not seeking to influence decision-makers.

Well that's completely untrue, isn't it? Because we know that actually if you get involved in youth council you're seeking to influence decision-makers, you're seeking to try and change things in your community, to become an active citizen.

We know that the first part of this is correct, because youth councils are organisations that are run by young people and for young people.

That means that they're not run by adults, and adults don't dictate the agenda, the sorts of things that are going to be discussed and campaigned on to change.

They're run by young people, and they're run for young people by young people.

So, what I would like you to do now with that knowledge that we have about youth councils is I'd like you to do a little bit more research about youth councils.

I'd like you to pause the video to complete your task.

Now task three is to watch the video about Islington Youth Council and answer the questions below.

To do this, you need to go to the worksheet for this lesson and watch a short video from Islington Youth Council and answer the following questions.

Number one, what is the purpose of Islington Youth Council? Number two, what does a youth councillor do? And number three, what made them want to become youth councillors? Now in order to find the answers to this, you're going to have to go to the worksheet now.

You're going to have to pause our video, and you're going to have to watch it.

My suggestion is that you jot down those questions now on a sheet of paper, pause the video, and then you go over to watch the video on the particular worksheet.

And of course, you can resume the lesson once you've finished with this particular task.

Good luck.

So I hope you enjoyed that video about Islington Youth Council, because some of the work there that those young people were doing was really inspirational.

It was about a youth council being a real voice for young people in their area.

So the questions I asked you were firstly, number one, what is the purpose of Islington Youth Council? Now the answer to this, and this is a little bit of feedback for you, and feel free to improve your answer by adding anything that you may well have missed out.

Youth councils represent the voice of young people in the borough and ensure that issues young people feel are important are raised with council leaders and decision-makers.

Candidates are chosen democratically every two years.

Now, in response to the second question, and you can see there, the second question is, what does a youth councillor do? The answer there is that they work to represent the views of young people in Islington.

They share their ideas with the council and work in partnership to help solve the problems that affect young people in the borough.

Youth councillors also take the views of young people to adult councillors so that they will be able to listen to young people's views.

They also help to determine how much money is spent on services for young people.

Now I'll make this full screen now so that you can look at it in much greater detail, and you can pause our lesson and add to your answer and make it even better.

Now, the last question on your task there was really about what made young people, what made those young people want to become youth councillors? Now I've chosen a selection of quotes from the video, and the selection of quotes that I thought were absolutely wonderful there was this one, and it said, "I wanted to become the mic "that amplifies the voice of young people "in Islington Borough so that their concerns "and views can be taken into account." Another young person said, "I wanted to give back to my community." Another young person said, "I wanted to make a difference and be involved "in shaping the future of our local community." And lastly, the final young person that we saw said, "I don't want to ask for change.

"I wanted to make the change myself." And that's such an absolutely wonderful quote, isn't it? Because really it's about the very essence of active citizenship, about young people getting involved in their communities to create change around them in their particular world.

Now, remember that you can pause our lesson now and you can add to your answer.

If you want to add in any of those quotes to make your answer even stronger.

Now, the next task that I'd like you to do is using all the information that we've got there about youth councils that we've learned together.

And it's task four, why are youth councils good for democracy? Now, firstly, I would like you to draw around your hand.

So on a sheet of paper, I'd like you to draw around your hand.

Once you've done that, I'd like to think about five different reasons, so reason one, two, three, four and five, five different reasons, why youth councils are good for democracy? Now, in order to do that, I'd like to share with you a definition of democracy.

And this definition of democracy might help.

So democracy means rule by the people.

The name is used for different forms of government, where the people can take part in the decisions that affect the way their community is run.

And I'll just read you that again.

Democracy means rule by the people.

The name is used for different forms of government where the people can take part in the decisions that affect the way that their community is run.

I'm going to make this full screen now.

I'd like you to have a go and pause our lesson and really have a great try at thinking about this particular question, about why are youth councils good for democracy? Best of luck.

Now well done for giving that task a really, really good try.

Now, when I ask students in my lessons to share with me answers for tasks like this, they'll often give me answers that look something like this.

They'll say, well, okay.

number one, youth councils allow young people to take part in decisions that affect their lives.

It's good for democracy because of that.

Number two, they'll say it's good for democracy because it forms good habits for life by getting young people to vote in those elections for members of the youth council.

And number three, why is it good for democracy? Well, students will often share with me something like it shows that democracy works and it is worth having a say.

And that's particularly important, isn't it? Because actually many people say, well, what is the point of voting? And we know there really is a point of voting.

Number four, people might say, well it allows better quality decisions to be made, because young people have been consulted.

They've been asked about that have views.

And that allows better quality decisions to be made about young people, but also about communities, because young people are members of their community.

You are a member of your community.

And it's important that decisions that are made take on board your views about the sorts of services that you want to see in your community.

And lastly, number five, it allows young people to stand for office as youth councillors.

Because the reality is, that in a good functioning democracy, we also need people who are prepared to stand for office as well.

I'll make this full screen so you can pause the video and you can add these kind of answers to your particular set of answers to improve them and make them even stronger as well.

Now I'd like to introduce you to the final thing that I'm going to talk to you about today.

And the final thing that I'm going to talk to you about is a little bit of a takeaway task.

And the takeaway task is to investigate.

And I'd like you to use a search engine to research the youth council in your area.

I'd like to start by looking at your local council's website to help guide you.

The reason for that is that local councils are often the organisations that help facilitate youth councils.

And they're probably a good space to be starting when you're researching about your particular youth council.

I'd like you to look out for these particular things.

How to get involved in your youth council? When are the next elections? And what issues have the youth council campaigned on or made a difference to? Now remember, you're keeping notes that you've made.

You're asking questions.

And in order to ask questions, you're kind of looking on the internet and you're trying to find the answers.

And really, enjoy investigating, because actually investigating things is a really important skill.

And it's actually quite fun to be inquisitive and to ask questions about things.

Now, feel free to pause our lesson now, and to take a note of anything about the takeaway task there.

Now, today's lesson has been one that has been quite varied.

We have looked at an awful lot of things.

We started out by trying to think a little bit about what we meant by local democracy? That then moved us on to a variety of different ways, what options do young people have to make their voices heard locally? One of those ways that we specialised in was about youth councils, and we thought about what are youth councils? That led us on onto a case study about Islington Youth Council, where you watched a video about the work of Islington Youth Councils.

Which led us into a wider question about democracy, and why are youth councils good for democracy? We've done an awful lot today in our lesson.

And we've looked at an awful lot of information.

And we've considered an awful lot of things about democracy and about youth councils and how you can get involved as a young person in decision-making in your particular area.

Now, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to consider sharing your work with Oak National.

Now, if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter, by tagging @OakNational and using the hashtag, #LearnwithOak.

Now, the materials today are provided by the Association for Citizenship Teaching.

Now, it's been absolutely wonderful to have you as part of our lesson today.

And I'd like to make sure that you do complete the exit quiz which is part of our lesson.

And that's got a whole host of questions that are related to what we've been going through and talking about, how you can make your voice heard locally and really focusing in on things like youth councils as well.

So thank you very much for participating in our lesson today.

It really has been wonderful to have you with us as part of our lesson.

Bye-bye.